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What are the going rates for your area for commission paint jobs? It does not have to be pro level, but good quality table top paint jobs. I'm trying to get an idea of what prevailing rates are.

Are you looking for work to do or are you trying to find someone to do some work?

If you are the painter, it doesn't matter what the prevailing rates are, you charge what you think you are worth. If one person isn't willing to pay for your services, someone else will... eventually.

That being said, the figures that get thrown around for quality work are $8-10 an hour. Even for a small to medium sized commission, that can turn out to be pretty expensive. However, there are lots of painters out there who undercharge so that can set unreal expectations on the part of the consumer. There are people out there that charge half of that and put out good quality work, but they typically don't last long at that price (they either quit because it isn't worth the time or they wise up and charge more).

If you are looking to hire someone, don't hire someone you cannot afford.

What Scooty said.

Also it depends on what you are painting and to what level.

I can knock out a table top quality warcaster for WM in about 3 hours. I can knock out table top quality squad of Space Marines in about 6 hours. Where as something as big as a Colossal or the new Knight Titan thingy are going to take considerably longer.

Also expectations are extremely important as the painter or the customer. You need to work out what you want. I think of table top as at least 3 colors a wash and a few highlights. You might think it includes 2 brush blending and amazing detail on the faces, OSL from weapons etc. Do you want to include prepping, pinning, basing, converting? These are all things to consider when setting a price.

I have never accepted a painting commission before. I am painting a Flames of War army and I am charging $500 for 117 stands of infantry, guns and arty. Just trying to figure out if I am charging too little or too much.

That sounds very cheap, figure each guy might take a couple hours minimum, so at about $5 a guy..

Think about it in terms of per hour pay. If this takes you 50 hours you are at $10 an hour and so on. How fast can you paint it to his standards?

At the end of the day it's a gut-check. If you feel like you're not getting enough then you need to charge more.

It is for a friend and I am trying to cut him a deal. Normally I would shoot for closer to $20 per hour for doing it just to make it worth my time, but I couldn't bring myself to charge him $1000 for a paint job.

Tressel wrote:
It is for a friend and I am trying to cut him a deal. Normally I would shoot for closer to $20 per hour for doing it just to make it worth my time, but I couldn't bring myself to charge him $1000 for a paint job.

$20 an hour is pretty unrealistic for an unestablished freelance painter, especially for only "tabletop quality." You would be hard pressed to find someone willing to pay that much unless you have serious talent and a good reputation.

The other thing I would recommend is that always charge your normal rate, regardless if it is family or friends. If this is a business it should be treated as one, making exceptions for friends and family can lead to trouble.

It isn't a business. I normally will not do commission work just because my time is very valuable to me. I have my regular full time job at night and I am a stay home dad with my daughter during the day. In between the 4 hours of sleep I get a day I am also trying to start my own business as well. Usually any painting I do for other people is limited to small projects of one or two pieces for friends. This was a much bigger project than I would normal take on, but since it is for a friend I wanted to help them out. I just had no idea what a fair rate was. $20/hr I thought seemed pretty reasonable. Most commission painters I know get significantly more than that.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

Tressel wrote:
It is for a friend and I am trying to cut him a deal. Normally I would shoot for closer to $20 per hour for doing it just to make it worth my time, but I couldn't bring myself to charge him $1000 for a paint job.

$20 an hour is pretty unrealistic for an unestablished freelance painter, especially for only "tabletop quality." You would be hard pressed to find someone willing to pay that much unless you have serious talent and a good reputation.

The other thing I would recommend is that always charge your normal rate, regardless if it is family or friends. If this is a business it should be treated as one, making exceptions for friends and family can lead to trouble.

Really depends on speed.

For 15mm Flames of War figures, you can actually paint them up really fast (same with most WWII, regardless of scale). I know I have finished entire FoW sized armies in a single weekend.

The same ends up applying to other armies. If you are a slow painter, you may be hard pressed to make $10 per hour. If you have refined your assembly line painting techniques, it isnt hard to get 5-10 figures done in a couple hours. Even at rock bottom prices, that is still upwards of $20 per hour.

Things change of course if they are wanting display/competition quality pieces. There you might spend 20 hours painting one figure, but for army painting, especially 15mm armies, you can give them the attention they need and still get $20 per hour starting out.

Tressel wrote:
It isn't a business. I normally will not do commission work just because my time is very valuable to me. I have my regular full time job at night and I am a stay home dad with my daughter during the day. In between the 4 hours of sleep I get a day I am also trying to start my own business as well. Usually any painting I do for other people is limited to small projects of one or two pieces for friends. This was a much bigger project than I would normal take on, but since it is for a friend I wanted to help them out. I just had no idea what a fair rate was. $20/hr I thought seemed pretty reasonable. Most commission painters I know get significantly more than that.

I suppose I wasn't exactly clear in my phrasing so my apologies. If you are charging anyone money for goods or services, it should be treated like a business.

I have a regular full time job as well and I take commissions when I want and from whom I want, but I would always charge a standard rate regardless of who it was for. Like I said, making exceptions for people can lead to undesirable issues but YMMV I suppose. Also, while I agree that what you do is your business, but if you are as busy as you said (only getting a couple hours of sleep, kids, work, trying to start your own business) taking on a job that large might have been a bad idea, especially considering you were willing to under charge for it.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
Really depends on speed.

For 15mm Flames of War figures, you can actually paint them up really fast (same with most WWII, regardless of scale). I know I have finished entire FoW sized armies in a single weekend.

The same ends up applying to other armies. If you are a slow painter, you may be hard pressed to make $10 per hour. If you have refined your assembly line painting techniques, it isnt hard to get 5-10 figures done in a couple hours. Even at rock bottom prices, that is still upwards of $20 per hour.

Things change of course if they are wanting display/competition quality pieces. There you might spend 20 hours painting one figure, but for army painting, especially 15mm armies, you can give them the attention they need and still get $20 per hour starting out.

I agree that the speed in which you can paint plays a part, but we will have to agree to disagree on hourly rates.